Thel2013 by Hobart and William Smith Colleges

Hannah Bishop Khalym Kari Burke-Thomas Thomas Crowther M.C.S. George Meredith Groman

Bethany “Lucy” Lyon Loren Marshall Caitlin Petty Evan Phail Jocelyn Rapp Esperanza Rivadeneira Ana Schavoir

Thel

HOBART & WILLIAM SMITH COLLEGES

Carmelo Guglielmino

THEL LITERARY MAGAZINE 2013

Mekala Bertocci

2013

Thel 2013 Chief Editors Khalym Kari Burke Thomas Evan Phail Staff Sarah Ellen Ford Meredith Groman Bethany “Lucy” Lyon Matt McClean Jocelyn Rapp Esperanza Rivadeneira

For Tina, and Thelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s favorite, Lucy

EDITOR’S NOTES THEL is an ever evolving, ever changing magazine for HWS. Each year, new hands weave the fabric. Each year, they conjure the magic. I am very proud of this year’s issue, considering it the best product of my four years here. I am proud of the combination of prose, poetry, art, photography and hybrid forms that can be found within, deeming this magazine a true hydra. The magazine’s growth is a gift to the hard working Thel crew who have fed this monster with love and creativity. While our current members are a committed force, I also will not forget the work of Thel’s forefathers, Sarah Amundson (WS’11) and Tim Carter (H’12) who helped us climb the mountain to create a better issue each year. I am also very appreciative of our wonderful faculty in the English department. Special thanks to Melanie Conroy-Goldman, Rob Carson, Kathryn Cowles, Karl Parker, and Mary Gaitskill for their support, whether just this year or for the last four years. THEL is also grateful to the English Department’s Tina Smaldone who has put up with our antics and always gives us a good laugh (or juicy gossip). I lastly want to thank Khalym Kari Burke-Thomas, my partner in crime, the Invisible Woman (hey, that’s what you wanted) to my Human Torch, for being a great friend ever since our first year seminar. You have the most ridiculous sense of humor that has a contagious effect on us all. Beyond this trait is your loyalty to language and a fantastic instinct to disect creative writing. Luckily we will be in the same city in the future to continue the laughs, gaffes, and rough drafts. Here’s to our hard work, an issue that includes hard beasts, hot dates, snow, traveling, Halloween, dreams and visions. Overlord Thel will be pleased and shall live on and the Thelians (Thel-ites?) shall worship. Cheers! Evan Phail 4

With visual art comprising about half of this year’s issue of Thel, it’s hard to imagine that two years ago, aside from the cover, we had a completely image-free issue. Due in large part, no doubt, to the Hybrid Forms course I took with Professor Cowles this semester, I was especially eager to see if we could push the boundaries of what Thel had done in the past so that we wouldn’t have a publication dedicated to text only or exclusively to text and photography, but a publication that truly embraced both textual and visual forms. I’m proud to say that I think we accomplished this. Perhaps one of the most successful examples of this hybrid work is Bethany Lyon’s “wolf” piece, a wonderfully dark interpretation of the folkloric Big Bad Wolf. But that is not to take away from those pieces dedicated solely to text and solely to image. Thomas Crowther’s “Coming Home” and all three of Ana Schavoir’s poems, for example, stand amongst my favorites of the issue, all truly fresh and bursting with creativity. As for the visual pieces, M.C.S George’s ghostly sepia photograph has haunted me since I first viewed it. And then there was the first annual What the Thel? contest, for which we received a great amount of exciting work. The winning written piece, Jocelyn Rapp’s ‘My Father’s Shroud’, is an incredible example of what the students at HWS are capable of. It should go without saying that I am eternally indebted to all of the members of this years editorial board, but none more so than my Co-Editor-in-Chief, Evan Phail, without whom this issue would not be half as bangin’ and whose friendship is truly invaluable. I would also like to thank Tim Carter, alongside whom I worked on last year’s issue and who is still very much invested in the publication’s well-being. He is a great mentor as well as a great friend. Speaking of mentors, I’d lastly like to thank all of the professors I have had here at HWS, especially those who have championed my creative work as well as Thel itself: Melanie Conroy-Goldman, Karl Parker, and Kathryn Cowles. These 5

figures have given me an almost dangerous amount of permission and it is because of them I am the person and writer I am today. For all of you who have the fortune to read this wonderful issue, I hope you have as incredible of a time reading it as I have had helping to make it. warmth, kkbt

“WHAT THE THEL?” is a contest to make us remember what our club really stands for. “The Book of Thel” is a poem by William Blake that deals with themes of innocence, experience, sexuality, death, and existence. All our favorites! We wanted HWS writers, poets, artists, and photographers to submit work that deals with these themes or any other interpretation that they had of “The Book of Thel” There are two winners. One for written piece (fiction or poetry) and one for visual piece (photography, painting, drawing, etc). The winning written work is our opening piece “My Father’s Shroud was a Blanket My Moher Wove” by Jocelyn Rapp. The winning visual work is by Bethany “Lucy” Lyon which can be found on page 50.

CONTENTS PROSE

Jocelyn Rapp, My Father’s Shroud was a Blanket My Mother Wove Evan Phail, The Eye

POETRY

Ana Schavoir, The Restaurant Hot Date 2:09 A.M. Wednesday. Contemplating the nature of my existence. Esperanza Rivadeneira, Clover Thomas Crowther, Coming Home Meredith Groman, Slush Esperanza Rivadeneira, shh Carmelo Guglielmino, A Traveler’s Tune Esperanza Rivadeneira, clarity Khalym Kari Burke-Thomas, Untitled

HYBRID

Evan Phail, Block Poetry Bethany “Lucy” Lyon, Untitled

11 31 14 15 16 19 20 22 26 53 55 56 12 17

ART

M.C.S. George, Untitled Loren Marshall, Untitled M.C.S. George, Untitled Mekala, Bertocci, Untitled Bethany “Lucy” Lyon, Untitled Loren Marshall, Untitled Untitled Untitled Hannah Bishop, Untitled Loren Marshall, Untitled Bethany “Lucy” Lyon, Untitled Mekala Bertocci, Untitled Caitlin Petty, Regrets

Cover art by Bethany “Lucy” Lyon

Dancing Figures by Loren Marshall

18 21 23 24 25 27 28 29 30 47 50 52 54

The 2013 What the Thel? Poetry/Fiction Prize ____________________________

JOCELYN RAPP

My Father’s Shroud Was a Blanket My Mother Wove Mother lies on the couch, awake in the most plain sense, detached, through racking sobs she shivers in defiance of the real temperature, and in testimony to the body’s desire to remain living despite, or in spite of, its inhabitant. The tea on the table is useless, the room deflates as if the daytime outside will never light inside again, the clock does not tick; though we are moving, nothing moves, the world that is this dying room is stagnant, paralyzed like the lungs of the hiker after a plunge into a high mountain lake –there is a release of breath, pushed out along the shattered-glass surface, a panic, flailing, and finally the gasp above water. I think I hear her say, I’m cold, and from out of our own muteness we agree –She’s shaking, She’s never cold – or maybe we say nothing, it’s not clear; but death is broken and instantly and simultaneously it is known that there is nothing that can be done and that there is only one thing, which we must do: we crawl onto her, cover her with the warmth once stolen from her, though she is smaller, there is room for both of us, for more, for the whole world of warm bodies to lie against her on that thrift store sofa, absorb the cold as no blanket can; her shaking rattles me until it is sinking, and expired; now motionless, now silent, now closer, closer, a second, a minute, five, we slide back into time, and once again, somewhere in this house, the clock ticks.

EVAN PHAIL

Block Poetry

ANA SCHAVOIR

The Restaurant

I already regret most of the things I said earlier but after a glass of wine, and a night in front of the television I probably won’t think anything of it. What I won’t forget, though is how you stared at me over the top of your menu. I could barely taste the clam sauce I had ordered. I was distracted by the weight of your gaze, and how you twirled your spaghetti with your fork.

ANA SCHAVOIR

Hot Date

I touched your leg by accident, I promise. It felt like I had brushed a hot stovetop. It went straight to my heart. Later, I realized it was only because your legs are very hairy. I did not like it. â&#x20AC;&#x192;

ANA SCHAVOIR

2:09 A.M. Wednesday. Contemplating the nature of my existence. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m awake staring at the moth attracted by the light of my computer. He taps against the screen, hoping to achieve something unattainable. To help him avoid disappointment, I crush him with my thumb. â&#x20AC;&#x192;

BETHANY “LUCY” LYON

M.C.S. GEORGE

ESPERANZA RIVADENEIRA

Clover

when you get to Regent St. you’ll see the house. It’s brick. The door is splintering off its hinges. Welcome: there’s a grimy ceiling fan and flickering lights. There’s a lingering stench, a sweet stink. The walls peel yellow. Have a seat on the moldy patched sofa. Clover’s hip leans perpetually on the kitchen counter. She’s got a pale mug, droopy like a hound that’s what she reminds me of. I come here to look into the flaps of her face; her beady eyes always scream

THOMAS CROWTHER

Coming Home

I had a dream where I found your diary in a cement bunker under the High School it had your name on it in cursive I turned to the back and looked at the last entry and she talked about how she wished she sung more how she would hide from me she called me a jerk but she spelled it j-s-e-r-k in a Ford Prefect kind of way then something happened to my family's home and we ended up staying with her family her parents were nice as were her siblings as was the chef who served us hash-browns with maple syrup but during my stay or my jeep rides to the beach I never saw her and I never heard her singâ&#x20AC;&#x192;

LOREN MARSHALL

MEREDITH GROMAN

Slush

My eyes can’t look up because the sky is shivering. Inside me the coldness crumples like a boot plunging through the shell of a snowdrift. Snowflakes may nestle briefly with bricks and line the sidewalks. But when Monday hits all that’s left drags you down – it’s salt that slides. My stomach falls, floats, plummets into itself. My legs keep pushing but eventually slow to the blue of a sleepwalk. The snow sinks in, moves on. Only the gray crystal salt is left – something always gets left behind.

M.C.S. GEORGE

MEKALA BERTOCCI

BETHANY “LUCY” LYON

ESPERANZA RIVADENEIRA

shh

keep her quiet, string her up behind glass on display crack they pried her open like butterfly wings pay attention, there’s a glimpse of white sheets stained black and brown you ripped her open when she was ripe it doesn’t matter, everything goes rotten

LOREN MARSHALL 27

LOREN MARSHALL 28

LOREN MARSHALL 29

HANNAH BISHOP 30

EVAN PHAIL

The Eye

Asleep on the subway, I wake to screeching steel. My

head hurts and I have no way to ease it. My hands are clammy and my crotch is wet but I don’t think I’ve pissed myself. I must have been sweating. Looking around, the car is empty. I like the emptiness right now. It’s not busy and it doesn’t hurt me to look at people if they aren’t there. But I have to get up and go to the next car and look at them. I need money. I need to eat. In the next car are people reading, others staring out the windows into the underground’s darkness, and others staring through the side windows into the empty car I occupy. They only look at me for a second before quickly directing their attention elsewhere. Some days I like greeting the morning subway passengers. They have promising dreams and aspirations. They have joyful memories that drive them forward, but not today. I slide the first set of doors, and stand between the two rocking cars. The wheels against the rails shriek in my ears like a blowtorch. I open the next doors that attach to the next subway car, and immediately feel the air of discomfort, regret, violence, and gloom. The doors close behind me and I begin: “Ladies and gentlemen, good morning, I won’t try to give you a sob story of how I have a hungry kid at home, or how I’m disabled and lost my job. I won’t tell you that I’m a 31

recovering alcoholic or one-year-sober-addict. That’s not my case and it would take too long to explain. I only ask for any spare change you might have or any pieces of food that you may be willing to offer. I particularly love apples if anyone has one.” My spiel is over as quickly as I can make it. I can already feel my head hurting more. I walk slowly through the car, looking left and right for any generous patrons, like cautiously roaming an unfamiliar street. Their thoughts are like speeding cars, honking at me, never letting go of the gas pedal. As I walk, I strum my thigh up and down with my index and middle finger. It’s become a habit when I feel exposed, all the anxiety and shyness is propelled to my fingers, a small burst of the nervous dance inside me that no one can see. I can’t hide from the passengers but at least it feels like that, letting my fingers do the walking for me. No one looks up at me as I pass through. I can’t calm the people shouting in my head, I look at one in particular on my left, a brunette in her thirties. She’s wearing her hair in a bun and her thick black rimmed glasses and red lipstick give her an intellectual yet desirable edge. She looks at me for only a moment and in that one glance, I see it. I see the man who told her that he was terminally ill. He told her to sleep with him and it would be the last thing he would ever do before he died. His smooth speech lured her from the bar and they found each other in a hotel room a few blocks away. He hunched over her, his whiskey sour breath hovering around her neck. He lasted exactly twenty minutes, then the hotel clock alarm went off and he left the room, whispering in the same slick voice that he would be right back. She lay naked in the bed for a few minutes and was startled when an elderly couple unlocked the door and walked in. They said she was in their room and to get the hell out. She gathered her blue bra and jeans, grabbed her jacket and ran. She never saw him again. She wears his lie, hidden beneath the surface, like her bra underneath her 32

jacket. I can’t stop what I see; only redirect my attention. A Japanese man with a black mustache is reading the newspaper, ignoring me. I don’t need eye contact to absorb the energy he radiates. I shake as I see through his eyes. The black waves rise ten meters, stressing, un-stressing, in an iambic pentameter rhythm. The unpredictable winds lash through as waves flood streets and debris swims by, followed by boats followed by brick buildings followed by bodies, bobbing to the surface. Gates break and the city crumbles and childhood memories are obliterated. Waves surge to nuclear plants, seeds of explosions bloom in the atmosphere, radiation pollinates the winds. The waves pluck his car up and swallow it into the underbelly of the ocean. His store disappears as it submerges under nature. He watches from higher ground as his labors are flushed away. He is scared but stronger is his sense of loss. From it, he grieves but must move forward, rebuilding what he had worked for. He is unbending and I can feel his ideas to restart. He is strong-willed and I only wish I was as determined as he. I stumble through the crowd, losing my concentration. My plastic cup has a couple of quarters and pennies. I also planted one dollar bill, sometimes people will give a few more if they think others have. I get to the end of the car and no one has offered help. The next stop is 51st street. I think I’ll stop there. It’s less crowded than Grand Central Station but I can still get decent money. The subway slides to a stop and the doors open. I leave and hope that no punk kids comment on how I smell like dog shit. Sometimes they like to exaggerate even if it’s not true. It doesn’t help that the August humidity is like a sauna underground. I maneuver my way through the morning crowd and walk up and down different flights of stairs, finding an empty corner close to the entrance/exit stairs. I sit down and lean against the cracked faded tile, my scuffed baseball cap 33

and plastic cup in front of me. An overweight man steps on the baseball cap. A quick and reproduced “sorry” is all he has to say and all I have to hear. His voice carries me to the radio sound waves that transmit his talk show. His radio station is cold that winter. For the first time, there isn’t the familiar warm face in the chair across from him, no vibrant voice speaking in the mic like it did the day before. A hot chocolate sits by the soundboard, two straws but only one has signs of lips. The music playing has an air of remembrance, but it is soon lost. The weighty DJ speaks and loses his voice and confidence and everything and the listeners hear nothing and wonder what could be going through his head. Why can’t they hear the spunky partner, whatever happened to her? His longing for her upsets my stomach. He has a strong and sad desire and knows it cannot be fulfilled, an affection unrequited, a yearning that must vanish but he refuses. The man has turned a corner and I take a breath of silent air. The hallway is noiseless for a few moments but is interrupted by the rumblings of a barreling train. A herd of people round the corner and stampede past me. A quarter and a few pennies drop in my cup. A few clanks and the crowd is gone. I examine the faded penny. It is not what everyone thinks it is. They think it symbolizes good luck, or copper, or Abraham Lincoln, or even molded 1973, but no. It solidifies my poverty and supports their artificial attempts to understand and consider themselves charitable. I’ve been living in the streets about three years, but I’ve known about my condition for maybe five or six years. I toy with the idea that my complicated mind isn’t a problem but a sign of genius, possibly designed by da Vinci. Beethoven and Mozart could be thrown in there to deafen and blind the beauties of the world and make me an imperfect prodigy. But truly, it is not a talent. I don’t know how this curse came to be. Years ago, I denied that I heard voices. I denied that I saw things in people. I thought it was just paranoid feel34

ings. But while in the office, I learned something about my co-worker Joseph. No one told me that he was getting a divorce, but during a conference call meeting I could see the anger even though it didn’t show in his face. I could read it in his thoughts and feel the rage beyond the monotone of his speech. He was talking about the new project’s budget, but all I could hear was his wife cursing at him in their apartment. The caller spoke on the other line but I heard chairs flipping on their sides, cracking like frail bones. My sight was much fainter then. I didn’t perceive much more from Joseph but, two weeks later, news spread that he and his wife were splitting up. A few weeks after, I detected the pressure that the intern’s parents were putting on him. My mind inflated with demands from his parents whom I had never met. His crooked posture enveloped his father and mother’s adoration to his older brother. They waited for him to live up to the expectations set by his sibling. In a few months, I recognized the taste of vodka on Monica’s tongue. Her cubicle was parallel to mine and although she had not gotten up from her desk, I could taste orange juice and Svedka. I commented to my boss how she might have a problem, only to read from her thoughts that it was the only warmth she felt at night. A private joy that no one else should know. The perceptions saddened and confused me. I forget how much longer I stayed with the company after that but my observations distracted me. Quitting was easy since my work had been in a steady decline for months. I never had the confidence to tell anyone about my awareness. No doctors. Not you. You were my best friend since college yet I could never find the words to articulate what was on my mind. You never seemed to, either; you preferred action to words. When we were cuddling on the apartment sofa once, I felt you. What was inside you alarmed me. It was uncertainty, not in you but in me. You were so much farther ahead in life 35

than I was, making plans for your career, and preparing to leave me behind, especially when I became unemployed. You didn’t see me as the mature man who would be right there with you. My confusion of people strengthened and I found days where I was exhausted by early afternoon. You assumed that I was depressed, only making things worse since you tried to help me and I had to push you away. I could see it in your hidden-teeth smile that you did not know if I was worth taking care of. That’s when our arguments started. Only rarely did I feel what you thought but it angered me. Your uncertainty was like a heartbeat in my head, fluctuating between hypertension and cardiac arrest. Or like a seesaw, tilting from warm sand to cold rocks. I’m tired and lie down on the dirty tiled floor. People are exhausting and I can only stand them for so long. I dream of you. I’m running down the train station steps. You grab your luggage, board the train and the doors slide closed. “Wait. Don’t leave me,” I yell although the train window divides us. You look back, and, seeing me, your eyes wince. Your mouth quivers and maybe you think you’ve made a mistake. I can’t tell because this was before my mind was keen to recognize entirety. It’s too late. You’re gone and I don’t know where. Not sure of the time, but when I wake there is a crowd bustling through. It’s a fleeting moment but a young man about the same age as me walks by and I don’t feel so heavy and can sense a good mood shining through the hall. He’s wearing a sharp blue suit and his bronze hair is tailored for success. I can taste strawberries. Tongues search each other’s mouth, jaws stretch to form animal bites. Her hands feel soft on his neck. I forget about you for a moment and cherish his pleasure. He knows his wishes will be fulfilled. She has him pinned as she plays with him. It happens every Sunday and Thursday. And today, he’s pleased that it’s Sunday. I sense erotic pleasure in many people; it’s one of the few instinctual joys that drive us. Otherwise, people usually hold on to trag36

edy. I get up and walk out of the train station. The sun is high in the sky so I guess it’s around noon. Since I’m close to the park, I want to spend time with the statues. The Shakespeare one is a personal favorite but I also like the bronze Christopher Columbus. In a short time I find myself on the park’s ‘Literary Walk’ and find a bench. I dump my cup into my hand and count the change. It’s roughly five dollars for only an hour. I look at the Columbus statue with his hand outstretched and his face gazing at the heavens above as if he were calling for an answer. It’s been maybe a week since I took this route last. I missed him and the other statues. The statues have a silent existence, unlike the people I see. People are like ants marching their way through life and I study them with a magnifying glass. Or people’s unconscious thoughts are on a slide as I examine with a microscope. In their heads are minor items swimming around like the dreams of yesterday or the memories of what used to be. In the center is always the gigantic red eye glaring back. Within is the dominating emotion, the stem to every memory and dream they hold dear. The dominating eye is like a circulatory system running the body. What I see are the desire or shame or pleasure or loss feeding their thoughts, shining on every moment in their past. It’s dangerous and full of raw energy, like looking at the sun but I can’t look away. My thoughts are interrupted by a clunk of change and a gasp that makes me think of you. But it is you. I don’t expect it but you’re standing right in front of me. Your brown hair cascading off your thin shoulders would give you away to anyone but not to me. It’s your green eyes dodging back and forth between mine and the walkway, questioning if it really could be me. You’re screaming in your head, the memory of arguing, calling out terrible names and a week later fucking again. That’s probably why you left but I can’t tell because I can’t read every thought in your mind, only the one that is gawking at me. Uncertainty would not cover the sensation of anger and affection. 37

“Hello” I say faintly as my throat is constricting with anxiety. You look at me with your mouth open but no words form. Your eyes bounce around and recognize me. “It—it’s you. What happened?” You say it in such a way I feel as if it’s my death sentence. I remember a night you were unhappy and locked the door on me when I came back to the apartment, drunk from an office party. “I’ve been struggling.” “I’m so sorry,” you emphasize. “I thought you were okay.” A snapshot of us kissing on a Ferris wheel clicks in my head. Your lips turned upward in a smile as they touched mine, frozen in a photo. “I’ve had problems and couldn’t find any help.” I can’t look you in the face and instead look behind your right shoulder at the pleading Columbus statue. I lied about not finding help. The truth is, I never asked for any. You look away for a moment but I can see that you mouth has formed a smile, but not a happy one. Instead it trembles like someone who has lost a loved one. “Come with me,” you say. You have always been generous. You are one of the most caring people I have ever known and this invitation is genuine. Even when we fought, you never insulted me but pointed out how I could better myself. From your perspective, I had no reason to quit my job. It looked like laziness. I want to touch you but my dirty fingernails would disgust you and I want to stand close to you but I’m afraid you might vomit. My body twitches and my chest pounds, going a hundred miles an hour. I get up, my legs weak under me and we walk out of the park. “I live close by.” “you’re living back in the city again?” “Yes, the insurance firm I worked for out west didn’t need me anymore. Then Bergman’s hired me about a year ago.” I took a few seconds between each of my questions, 38

my body shaking like addicts I had seen begging. “You went out west? When did that happen?” “There’s a lot I’ve done the past few years.” The wind whistles for a long moment. “I’m glad to see you, J.” I reference nicknames from our previous life. “I’m glad to see you too, D” you say and I my throat traps my voice. My finger drums along my thigh like rain against a window. I can’t let you see that. You stop outside a grocery store that also has a pharmacy and say “Wait out here. Let me just get you some soap and a razor.” I have to stop you. You won’t be able to fully help me. “What are you doing?” You sigh. “What I always do. Do you want help?” “Why? How could you change anything?” I sound bitter but it’s all I can say to defend myself. The seesaw in you swings to the rocks. Your nostrils flare just like when we were in a fight. “Well I can’t leave knowing that I could have helped. Now. Wait. Here.” You turn and enter the store, expecting me to wait. I have no reason to leave and as my shaking slowly recedes, I notice in the street a pigeon flattened on its back. Its legs point skyward and fragile wings tremble in the wind as cars drive by, like torn paper, so easy to disregard and consider trash. A young woman walks by me in a hurry. Her distressed thoughts are rapid and strung together. “Gotta piss it all out. Two gallons of water a day, for a week. I only have four days. Gotta piss it all out but the last day, I’ll have a coke to color the piss, makes it look like I’m not trying to cheat. Gotta piss eight times in two hours if I want to pass the background check.” The eye is in panic. All thoughts are shooting out to overload like a failing computer. She is wrapped in panic and failure. She’s out of control and she knows and it scares her. I laugh. I know it’s dark and not funny at all but her 39

failure could be so significant that all one must do is laugh in its face. She is so caught up in the moment that I cannot sense her reasoning for the job. Maybe she is desperate. Maybe she is irresponsible. Maybe she needs the job to support her children. But because I cannot see it, it is trivial to me. You come back out with a grocery bag of toiletries and hand it to me. There’s soap and a razor in there like you said but you also bought hair trimming scissors, a few bottles of water, and an apple. I follow you down the street and am surprised when you lead me to a park view apartment. You get in the elevator but I don’t step in. “You won’t be able to stand so close to me.” “Why?” I don’t say anything and your eyes widen at me. Then I admit “I stink.” “You’re not that bad. You can shower upstairs.” You don’t budge, giving me an expecting look. I step in and am surprised when you don’t cover your nose when we’re in close quarters. As the elevator lifts us, I strum my thigh up and down, wishing the A/C would be stronger. We get off at the sixth or seventh floor and you walk to the door closest to the elevator and let me inside. The apartment is rather small but the furniture and kitchen are beautiful. My boots track dirt onto the white carpet and I decide not to walk further. I unfasten the laces and release my foot to the air. I’ve been wearing the same socks for the past month and I don’t think I’ve taken them off. What used to be white is now a brownish yellow. I would like to stuff them into my boots but you’re watching and I don’t want my bare feet visible. “Now you can’t stay here for long but …. The bathroom is the door next to the kitchen.” You are fussing with papers at the kitchen counter, probably lists you have created for all your tasks and chores. “I think you have what you need. Let me run downstairs to the store and get you some fresh clothes too.” 40

You shut the door quickly behind you. Seems like nothing has changed, you have faith in me more than you should. For everything that you were uncertain about, you were right. I have thought about it for years after you left. All I did was push you away when you wanted to care. Yet I am grateful this time as I tip toe to the bathroom, trying not to leave marks on the carpet. The sweat on my shirt sticks to my skin and I am relieved to take it off along with the ripped jeans. I stand in front of the mirror and look at myself. My eyes are bloodshot red and I look twenty years older than I am. My blonde hair has become knotted and repulsive and my beard is decorated with city debris. I pick up the scissors and the razor and switch between shaving and cutting my hair, using a plastic bag to trap it. Emptiness. That’s what I feel as I look at myself. I reach out but nothing is there. I used to be full of thoughts, finding solutions to any problems but the answers disappeared. Reason and logic faded like the details upon waking from a dream. The feeling is a black hole, a dead eye in the night. I can see the circulatory system but cannot see my own red eye pumping blood to the rest of me. I’m taunted by my senses swimming around, creating a skewed reality and I can’t find the source. The solution is hidden by all the outside material. I want to understand it. The black hole is a gateway, absorbing the irrational past and transplanting it into a rational existence somewhere else. I sail towards an awaiting danger, unaware if I will travel through the black hole to find reason on the other side. I hear the front door slam shut and know that you are back. I have just finished my hair and start the shower. It has been a long time since I took a hot shower. You didn’t provide me a washcloth so I decide to use the red one in the bathroom’s closet. It takes a lot of scrubbing for any dirt to loosen from my skin. I take quite a while and forget how the time passes. I hear a knock on the bathroom door but your voice is inaudible over the sound of the shower. The door is unlocked so I shout to come in. You do and I can see a blurry 41

version of you through the shower curtain. “You’ve been in the bathroom for an hour.” “Sorry, didn’t realize it’s been that long.” I really need the shower after what I’ve seen. “I can’t even imagine what you’ve been through.” “There’s a lot I don’t understand either, J.” I relish the hot water flowing through my shortened hair. The washcloth I’m using has turned from a bright red to a deep blood purple. You’ll probably have to throw it out when I’m done. “What were you doing in the park?” “We used to sit there often. I try to visit once in a while. It’s a good place to collect your thoughts.” I see your silhouette standing by the door. The seesaw has tilted to the warm sand. “I’m surprised that you recognized me.” “I am as well. You looked like a different person but there was something that caught my attention,” you laugh the way someone listens to an unbelievable story laughs. “Sometimes you can recognize people or something about them; something they may not even realize is there and is invisible. You know what I mean?” “Yes.” You laugh again, acknowledging that the idea seems ridiculous. “Like when you sense someone is looking at you in a crowded room. You scan around from face to face and when you find the eyes staring back at you, you want to look away but can’t.” There are a few minutes where I finish washing. Forgetting that you are still here, I turn off the shower and open the curtain then quickly hide behind it again. I’m scratching my thigh vigorously. I’m bare and clean for the first time in months but is that what you see, or will you remember me as I was only hours before? You are standing with a new set of boxers, socks, a white shirt and a pair of jeans and offer them to me. It may just be kindness to you but it’s freaking the hell out of me and I snatch them quickly, dressing on the other side of the curtain. We are silent. 42

I put the shirt on last. It is small and tightly fits my large frame. I step out and look in the half fogged mirror. I appear sort of healthy besides my teeth. I reach back into the shower and wring out the cloth and dirty water is released but the cloth is now a soiled rag. Before I turn back, you wrap your arms from behind me and I can feel your head hesitate to rest underneath my shoulders. It is the first time I’ve been hugged in a while and although you are only holding loosely, your nails in my ribcage feel like an iron maiden torture device. You are only there for a breath and say “I’m glad I could help.” Your voice quivers as you release me and leave the bathroom. I collect my dirty clothes and the rag and put them in a trash bag that you leave in the kitchen. I look out the window and dusk has descended on the city. You explore your fridge and bring out Chinese food. “I wasn’t expecting company so I was going to have leftovers. I hope this is enough for you.” It’s not but I don’t say this to you and instead enjoy what you have to offer. You ask me “What have you been doing?” “I don’t really want to talk about myself now. I want to know about you.” You tell me what you have been doing the last few years but I don’t understand most of it. As you share the past, memories beneath the surface are all swimming back to a place and time when we are together in our final months. You aren’t aware of what you’re sharing inside but my head hurts and all I can hear from you is sobbing. It is from a morning when we are out for a cup of coffee but it all changes. Sounds like an airplane coming in for a landing but shifts to a crash like a truck on truck collision. In a matter of seconds, sirens echo off every building and we look outside to see smoke vacate the top like a candle. We stand outside frozen, watching the candle and soon there is another candle and I can’t feel my body. I can’t move and you 43

are saying that the phones aren’t working. We stand with crowds around us for the span of an hour and the second tower crumbles into itself like a decomposing ribcage. As it collapses, smoke billows through the streets towards us. It’s already on us before we can run and we run back into the coffee shop, and the owner locks the doors behind us. Smoke fills every crevice of the street and nothing can be seen out the windows. You are crying for your mother. My heart sinks as I picture buildings burning in every direction and black smoke flooding the sky. I can hear your hyperventilating gasps as I wrap my arms around you but I can’t take you to safety. My eyes are wide open, staring at you, sharing the intense feeling of isolation. No one can save you. Your mother and your father aren’t here. Only I am and I can’t tell you that everything is going to be alright because it wasn’t. You’re talking about San Francisco but I can still feel your shoulders shaking like rattled fences on that day. The seesaw is no longer swaying, but ripped off its hinges, buried on its side. The memory invades my head and I remember the repercussions on us. You needed comfort and I absorbed your fear and gave nothing in return. Even now, catching up on each other’s lives, you carry it around with you. You trusted me to be supportive when the time came, and I could not do it. I cowered as you did, and sunk within. We divided from each other, keeping ourselves isolated. I had been unemployed for almost a year by then and I was aware of everyone’s confusion, huddled in that shop. In that hour, I was deafened by the cries of terror and could not place yours among the crowd. I had never felt your eye of confusion before and this epiphany over Chinese food gives me a sudden seclusion. My hands shake and I can no longer raise my fork to my mouth. “I’m sorry. But I think I need to lie down. I’m feeling dizzy and weak. I need to rest.” “Of course. You can sleep on the couch tonight. You can stay a couple of days if you really need to. We can talk later.” 44

You give me a blanket and I lie down on the couch. It’s early in the evening but you say that you’ll also go to bed. “If you need anything, just knock on the door.” Sleep does not come easy tonight. I’m accustomed to insects crawling on me when I sleep in public spaces but it is worse here in your apartment. I don’t know what to expect. Hopefully the ants don’t march in. You have the air conditioner on high and the pillows are as cold as the walls. The blankets are warm, the socks are too warm and my feet shift between comfortable and damp. I cough harshly a dozen times before I can release a sigh. My mouth feels rotten and my rolling tongue copies my toss-and-turn movements to try to taste sleep. An uncontrollable yawn escapes, eyes shut and tears well up as thoughts thrust around in a fogged shell. I found an answer. I discovered the eye in you. A root of confusion that has followed you everywhere you go, of life just not making sense when it is supposed to. Even if it only answers one of many questions, it’s a start. We connected, I wonder if you could feel it. Maybe I can solve more with you. Maybe I’ll finally ask you for help. Between the air conditioner hum and my own clashing thoughts, it’s confusing to sleep. Eventually I do, dreaming of you again. In a white house, I find you sleeping on the white floor. I pick you up and you sleep in my arms, breathing lightly against my shoulder. I walk to the bed in our old apartment and lay your head against the pillow. You sleep and I lie behind and wrap around you, and then we sleep together, and I wake up. I think I can hear a phone. It’s ringing in your bedroom. Is it actually ringing or part of a dream? Who is it? I kick the sheets off. My socks are incredibly sweaty but freezing. My neck feels stiff. I get up and can hear you mumbling in your room. I walk close to the door and listen. “I miss you” is the only thing I can decipher. You’re kissing him on a beach and you’re watching 45

kids throw a Frisbee. The disc flies through the air, graceful, like it will float in the sky forever but he says something to you and you look back at him. Your eyes interlock before both looking down at the ring in its case. I can feel your lips form the one word he wants to hear. I lace up my boots, grab the water and apple in the grocery bag and close the door to your apartment. I don’t need to see anymore. I jab the elevator button and it comes quickly. I leave your apartment and head towards the park. The air is dense but a comfortable breeze makes it bearable. I’ll stay outside tonight with Shakespeare and the full moon gazing down on me. I find a bench and sit there. I don’t need to sleep just yet but I can’t be around you. I was figuring the eye out, or only briefly, but your eye is so intense. I need your help but you can’t help me the way I need you. I need your undivided support. It’s not your fault. It’s no one’s fault but my own for expecting things to revert back to what they were. I can’t understand it all. My memories. Your memories. There is no answer to who I am. Seeing you is a return to the dark recesses in my mind. You resurrect dead memories like ghosts rising from graves. They walk through our lives once more, thinking they are the present. We shed these pasts to survive and bury them within us to never rise to the surface again. But they keep coming back. Maybe I could somehow tell you these things but I think it would awaken what is best to be covered. I feel powerless. I feel weak. I’m empty. The dead stare back at me and I see our old selves and the isolation that stemmed from coffee on a chaotic morning. Hungry for redemption, the past is a parasite roaming around in the eye, using it as a host while it infects the rest of the thoughts. When I look at the eye inside me, I feel the past draining me. How I wish to never look at the eye again.

LOREN MARSHALL

The 2013 What the Thel? Art Prize _______________________________

MEKALA BERTOCCI

CARMELO GUGLIELMINO

A Traveler’s Tune

Along along I’ll walk for long On roads and paths both dim and clear. And though there still be much to fear, Along along I’ll walk and sing. For a song in night does ever ring, But now for long I’ll walk along.

Regrets CAITLIN PETTY

ESPERANZA RIVADENEIRA

clarity

I was scraping away at the dirty window and all of a sudden I could see right through; I saw it all in front of me. I started to cry.

KHALYM KARI BURKE-THOMAS

For Halloween I was a continent on which people never lived past the age of thirty. Then one day someone turned thirty-one and music was invented â&#x20AC;&#x192;

MEKALA BERTOCCI will not rest until you’ve paid for what you’ve done. You were wrong to think that no one survived that bloody massacre all those years back. HANNAH BISHOP did not recall submitting anything to THEL, but would like to thank her past self for making her question her sanity yet again. Hannah is currently a sophomore attempting to be anything but sophomoric, particularly by using big words like aposiopesis or hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia. She then negates these efforts by watching copious amounts of children’s cartoons. KHALYM KARI BURKE-THOMAS splits his time between pretending to be your hand shadows and the hand shadows of your neighbor, Lydia. He has never had the courage to tell you this, but Khalym has and will always love Lydia more. THOMAS CROWTHER is a nobody who learned some poetry and stuff from Billy Barrett before Billy’s death. Real shame about that. He also has a radio show on Tuesdays at 9. But mostly he just makes nasty remarks and gives nasty looks as he sits in his corner of the dining hall looking expertly alone. M.C.S. GEORGE is the name of a typeface. MEREDITH GROMAN is an English and European Studies double major because she wants to write 58

historical fiction and biographies for children. She loves chipmunks because they are the cutest thing with racing stripes, and lasagna because itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s delicious. She writes because otherwise the words would pile up in her head and eventually burst out of her ears in rainbow colors. CARMELO GUGLIELMINO lives in Victor NY where he is often mistaken for a wizard carrying a staff in the woods. He apparently enjoys walking and reading, and may or may not be a local chess champion. BETHANY LYON, known as Lucy to friends and enemies, is the main character of Miltonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Paradise Lost and has made guest appearances in many other works of literature. She has the ability to sleep wherever and whenever she wants and can remember each dream. Lucy shares the same birthday as Mary Shelley and is a double major in Art History & English. LOREN MARSHALL is an amateur person but a professional person-watcher. She focused her undergraduate education on sustainable urban development and hopes to one day be a part of the movement to improve walkability, sustainability and accountability in cities everywhere. CAITLIN PETTY dreams of moving to Atlanta in hopes of becoming an Atlanta socialite and a cast member on the Real Housewives of Atlanta series. 59

EVAN PHAIL is a 2013 graduate majoring in English. A Bronx native, he plans on doing what all writers do, become hipsters and move to Brooklyn. His writing stems from the real and fictitious adventures experienced in his sleep. His work has appeared in The Legendary press. JOCELYN RAPP fights evil by moonlight and wins love by daylight. ESPERANZA RIVADENEIRA (Espi), is now a sophomore at Hobart & William Smith Colleges. She is double majoring in Latin American Studies and Russian Language. When she isn’t studying abroad or lost in a parking lot somewhere, you will probably find her arguing with her bunny rabbit, Carl, or running in the sun. ANA SCHAVOIR writes poetry in a small dark room in the company of a cactus and a small lizard who likes to be called Frank. While writing, she drinks Spicy Hot V8 juice for inspiration. Her favorite commercial is the one where the dolphin jumps out of the water and says “BROCCOLI! BROCCOLI AND CHEESE SAUCE!”